The straw/wood chip situation will not beat the tilled side the first season but give it one or two good rain years, poultry grazing, etc and it will beat the tilled side in the long haul. Awesome video. Dealing with similar challenges on a much smaller scale.

A few things. You should have left the wood chips down. Get rid of your tiller and get a skyline plow. It doesn't destroy the mycorrhyzal fungi and the microbiome. That and don't moy that field. Let it go to seed. You will be amazed if you put your pigs and chickens on 1/4 acre at a time and what comes from that. Pigs then chickens 3 days later. Get some legumes in there as well. With that you are on the right path to sustainable regenerative farming, nice job using what will grow naturally in that climate. Love what you are doing.

I think this is a testament to no til... especially if you’ve seen improvement after two or three years in the no til side. My understanding is that it takes years to build the soil with no dig from the start. If you do a sunflower patch on the no til side, the roots act as TIL and when you cut sunflowers down, you leave the roots in. ... basically you are trading work for time with no til... but, even with no til, it is often important to do an initial til... then from that point forward you never til again ... if you turn the area into a bed, you would still take a pitchfork or similar to lift and loosen the top eight inches or so without turning it. That’s what I’ve learned from watching a grip ton of no til farmer videos. But haven’t tried yet... just getting started with my farm.

I planted the same pasture mix last week. Tilled the soil with a small tiller, broadcast spreader with the mix, raked in with stiff tooth rake. Put wood chips on a test patch, the rest I left bare. Watered 1-2x/day. About a week in, and it’s sprouting where the wood chips are, nothing yet on bare ground. Tonight, I put wood chips on the entire area.

It looks amazing!!

Nice video. Thanks man, Seriously. I live in Casa Grande. I'm a big fan of wood chips also. Finally found wood chips source. This year fist year for veggies. Odd spring, still had light frost first week in March. I've been covering all seed lightly with pine animal bedding chips bought at Tractor Supply. Will be trying experiment with cover crops this week. Finally figured it out that if I put chips in chicken run, feed them there, I / they will create top soil by scratching all that up. Will probably screen all that ground and start watering in December.

Thank you for being so informative

Leave your grass 3 inches tall or more and it will overtake a lot of the weeds in a few months.

I live in Florida, near the west coast. Our "soil" here is basically sand. My yard, along with a lot of other yards that are not fertilized, watered, etc. had turned mostly back into sand after it was sodded when I had the house built about 10 years prior. The grass died in the heat. I saw some videos on how to have a green lawn, and one of the most important things was to never mow shorter than 4". So, I started to raise the mower, and I also let it go to seed at least once a summer. It looked bad, but if I did it by sections at a time, it was better. So it re-seeded again this year - not just the grass, but other plants growing in it. My yard now is lush, too lush, in fact. There are no patches of sand outside of where the drip line is off the house. The snakes love my yard, as do the squirrels and bees who come for the wild flowers that have sprouted. My point here is, why mow before it gets a chance to re-seed at least one time? That way you don't need to keep planting yourself. In terms of the wood chips, it could be some of the chips were too green, even after a year, and it threw the chemistry of the soil off. It will probably catch up. The fact that it came up on such dry land is a plus, so give it more of a chance. Wood chips are great, but they also have an impact on small plants.

This is amazing! Thanks.

Excellent Self sufficient sustainability work.

Great job, we are moving out to Wittmann in a few months to start our little farm.

Interesting result of the experiment. I wonder if the low water had an effect on how much the hydro loving guys were able to break down the wood chips and make a good place to live. Also curious about the aeration of clay for those anerobes. Did you fertilize both sides equally when you did? Or add fertility to the tilled side and not to the wood chip side? I’ve been bookworming on so much of this biological/regenerative/permaculture ag stuff living in the desert of Arizona incredibly curious about what works and doesn’t or needs to be shifted to work here on the edge of nowhere, so I just wanted to say THANK YOU for sharing your knowledge and experiments and experience here on KZfaq. I’m just starting on my own little garden box, but getting involved in a community vegetable garden project and looking for some land to learn on besides that, so. Thank you again for giving some context to this area.

Im not surprised in the least about the wood chip patch. For me its a no no,do not do under any circumstance. For three reasons. 1. It ties up crucial nutrients long term in the soil. 2. Adds high amounts of salts to soils. 3. Adds waxes to the soil which can make it water repellant.

Hi Duane and Lori, . Still catching up on old videos. Had to comment on this one though. If you do this again, tilled vs removed wood chips, you need to vs wood chips as well. You know wood chips are going to hold water. Water that those new seeds planted on wood chips can use. Probably grow better that the tilled ground. Only one way to find out. So to recap wood chips vs tilled vs removed wood chips. Cheers. . Bill

Wood chips??? How about leaves, worm castings, actual worms and organic mulch from tree trimmings. Although this looks good for grazing; sheep would be better than small chickens. Need big shade trees or maybe bamboo. If you’ve ever walked through an orange grove in Mesa...you’ll see free growing tall grass that keeps the soil cool and helps retain water.

👏thank you ❤

Alright, I’m up in North East AZ, up at the base of the white mountains. We get more rain than you do, and I’m wondering what your opinion is on being able to start a pasture that takes little to no extra watering using the savory methods? I want to build a small water retaining system at the low point of my property and slowly trying to build up a good soil base with drought resistant grass that already kind grows around here in small patches. Is that a totally unreasonable to think I could get a thick pasture like you have with using only rain water or mostly only rain water?

everyone doing regenerative agriculture wish them all the best

Wood chips will work, however, they must decompose some first. They only way this will happen, if used as a top dress, you must soak them in a VERY nitrogen rich water. The best nitrogen rich water to use is either urine, or ammonia. Also remember that if your top dress can absorb moisture, it will. It will do so by absorbing it from the ground underneath it,THEN, it will evaporate it to the air and sun. Wood chips work best if soaked in nitrogen, then put UNDER about 2-4" of topsoil or whatever you have available.

Hey good video man your giving me hope I’m in SD and need pasture. Is there a specific blend of seeds and how much water are you watering it with ?

Lessons learned before you start the process at your new place.

I’m just starting a pasture on sand and would like to see your three videos in order. Can you share link?? Also do you mow if you are going to put in the pasture?

How much did you water the grass? And do you keep watering when chickens are there?

Hey! I'm trying to calculate how much water and time it took for you to get those results. Could you let us know how long it took t get that growth from seed to pasture? Mostly really want to know how much water it took. Would love to know some numbers I can parse out the math but your best aproximation would be super useful! Thanks!

Did you do a moisture pit time improve log,be interesting see how over time the water moisture depth of the soil has changed.

Would you suggest a subsurface irrigation system for a grassy pasture or is that not the answer?

How do you manage to deweed all of that ground? It would take a couple days to finish that off!

I assume you planted the seed on top of the wood chips? Paul Gautschi plants seed in the dirt and when it comes up recovers the wood chips. This planting seed on top of wood chips probably accounts for the patchyness as some seed did not hit dirt to germinate? Paul puts wood chips lightly over established grass in the fall and it's green, lush and needs less water.

Did you have to pull a lot of rocks out? Was it highly compacted? Thanks!

What you're calling clover is what I'd call mallow (or at least some sp of Malva). I can't see it that well though so what do I know. I'm really surprised at how green that is in November, I didn't think that could happen in AZ without irrigation. We're planning on moving to AZ in the next year or so, and want to homestead. Before we decided on AZ, on my dream homestead in the first year I wanted to have a movable pig yard so they could "till" the ground for us, and then move chicken tractors over the same land, and then seed it for pasture. I'm disappointed to see how the untilled area did- I guess we'll be buying or renting a tiller. I only just found you from one of the AZ homesteading groups on facebooks so I don't really know- I saw you have pigs but are you going to get other hoofstock? We are hoping we can manage a mini zebu or jersey and some goats. Of course it's all just daydreaming right now til we finish school and actually *get* to AZ.

How are you doing your watering for that area?

could have and still can use a lawn aerator!! cool job, we could not find part 2 is this the part 2?? just asking old one legged joseph t retired navy

Where did you get the desert pasture seed mix?

How long has it taken to do all this and get to this point?

how often does he have to water or are the plants retaining moisture naturally ?

what cover crops would grow on sandy soil? or at least food for livestock?

How often do you water the crop?

Thats a diverse pasture.

How is life down in Nevada? Doing some research on the area, may do something similar as your farm!

Close-ups please, I'd like to see what the plants look like. 👍🙏

How often is this getting water?

Do you harvest flax seeds❓

Need to lime. Wood chips. Sawdust. Etc make the soil acidic

So are you saying the grass is greener on the other side

wood chips take a little linger and require water.

Surely the ground has to be broken up on some level for the seed to take - otherwise the ground is too hard, "that's" why the side with just the wood chip and no tilling didn't do well?

Woods chips are not equally as beneficial for a grass for 5 years. If you watch the Back to Eden videos of the guys who popularized it, for new ground it takes a long time to build up to the full benefit but also does better with plants and not grasses. He started with already tilled and amended ground, then started new untilled areas and began to build them up. The chips have to break down deeper into the ground. But ya with grass its not quite the same because they have to fight chuncks of chips that they cant grow through on the top.

Run the chickens over the wood chip side of the pasture. They will likely look the same soon

That doesn't surprise me at all about the difference in pastures. If your soil is compacted it won't matter much what you put on top of it. It usually takes an initial till no matter what on compacted soil, unless you're going hugelkultur or working with an insane amount of biomass and building up. What you might think about trying is tilling them both and then putting wood chips on one side.

One tip for "mowing" and watering. DO NOT DO IT IN MORNING OR NOON. Why would you send all that time money and energy to make clouds? When you mow or water in the morning or afternoon all that water and moisture mixed with scorching sun and temperatures not only all evaporates off but also hurts and kills the plants because how you you feel is someone cut you up and left you out in the scorching sun or poured nice cool water on you and left you in the sun for it to boil and leave you more thirsty? You'd just want to give up and die right? If you want the grass or pasture to FLOURISH especially in hot hot sun. Wait till everything goes to seed, mow with a bush hog and leave the clippings where the fall as mulch. Do this just before sundown in the late evening, it should be dark by the time you're done. THEN water IMMEDIATELY. By doing so you're providing it mulch and protection AND SEEDS, natural propogation, washing the nurtients from the clippings down into the soil where it's needed rather than putting it in the air via evaporation to blow away; the water you just put down has 6-8 hours at minimum to soak down into the soil where it's needed. That and you know how there is dew on the plants in the morning? It's condensation from the cooler evening temperatures. Now imagine if one a week or so the dust and dirt was washed off the plants and the surface tension already broken to aid that water to sink down in the ground faster? Also no till? Not only leave plenty of mulch (straw, grass clippings, leaves, invest in a small wood chipper and run prunings and raked brush etc through it... but all get you some sunflowers, dandelions, look for taproot plants that LOVE lots of sun and will till or irrigate the soil for you. If using woodchips and mulch, do a layer of decent soil and spread seeds including legumes and mushroom spores on it before covering it with sparse or shredded leaf mulch, then woodchip mulch. You just increased the the amount of water the soil can absorb and hold but also how much nutrition and microbiology you can grow. It should work. Give it a try.

Not sure where Whitman is, but i just purchased 2 acres in Williams, you think climates are similar enough for my land to do similar? I currently own pigs and cows and rabbits and chickens. Im ok with paying for feed for them for years, but want to plant an acre or so of feed to help offset costs. Ideas? Possible?

Tilling oxygenates the soil.very important.thats the reason for the difference

have you thought about meat sheep? that way you just move them ahead of your chickens and you dont have to mow the grass

7:46 dont ever tell yourself you cant do anything buddy

Shit in Mississippi if your pasture look like that it would have blackberries thistles briers bitter weed it would look way worse

"Desert" but I think he has access to a lot of water.

You should not have taken the wood chips off, leave the chips and put the chickens,

Manicure 💅 lawns goes against God laws